Friday, October 13, 2017

Sea King - “Hazy Dream”: A music review By Ryan Lowell, Windham High School Journalism Teacher

In a music video shot for the song “I Don’t Wanna Lose My Mind,” Jake Newcomb
carries a lantern through Battery Steele, the cave-like former military base on
Peak’s Island; lighting up the graffiti that decorates the walls as he walks
through the empty corridors. It’s fitting imagery for “Hazy Dream,” Newcomb’s
third album-long search for illumination via various philosophies, religions
and dreams, which he recorded as Sea King.

A Maine
native who traded the Portland in Maine for the one in Oregon, Newcomb’s music
has always felt as comfortable travelling between genres as the name of his
self-created Nomadic Behavior Records suggests. As with previous Sea King
albums, “Hazy Dream” is unified by overarching themes of self-betterment,
spirituality, and the meaning of life, more than it is by any particular sound.

Over
the years, Newcomb has become adept at layering samples, vocal effects and
backing instrumentation into his music; fleshing out creations to the point
where they seldom sound anything like the traditional guy and guitar,
singer-songwriter stuff. But when you hear a Sea King song, no matter what he
has done to manipulate his sound, Newcomb’s heartfelt lyrics are always the
centerpiece. The album begins with a vocal slowed and deepened to a register
somewhere between satanic and operatic, but Newcomb’s message is anything but
obscured as he repeats the line, “sometimes I feel like a motherless child.”

This
vulnerability is one of Newcomb’s most endearing traits. He opens up even more
on the aforementioned “Lose My Mind,” confessing the continued work he’s
putting in to maintain sanity, maturity, and sobriety.“I don’t wanna waste my life,” he sings.

Most of
the rest of the album inhabits brief, thought provoking bursts that sound like
the hazy dreams after which the album is named. Newcomb’s music dwells in those
sleepy moments just after waking up - trying to hold onto snatches of insight
from the subconscious, that waking life mercilessly rips away. On “Light In The
Cave,” Sea King is “gonna reach for the answers tonight.” On “My Lame Brain,”
he struggles to escape the fog of his own mind and the hazy dreams that
imprison it. And on “Within Your Mind,” he uses dreaming to “fit infinity into
a morning.”

Newcomb continues the search for life’s answers in dreams throughout the album
without ever quite getting there. But there are rewards in the continued
pursuit, and in Newcomb’s vocalization of it. The album lingers for a
lighthearted moment on the soothing standout “No Objective,” which finds Sea
King taking the time to stare at the walls and feel just fine about it. Jake
Newcomb hasn’t found a way to fully channel the wisdom of his dreaming mind, but
“No Objective” suggests he’s not losing much sleep over it. Hopefully those sleep
filled nights will help him on his quest to make sense of all those hazy
dreams.